Deferred Existence
by Shine in the Shadow
Summary: Harper's life on Earth. There's no emphasis on Beka, she doens't come in until the end I think. WIP.


Deferred Existence Disclaimer: I don't own them or anything else, I leech off my folks yet, so if anyone sues then good for them. If this is blatantly copying someone else's, like, exact plot I am so sorry, please forgive me. Link me to yours and I'll grovel. Warning: Uhm issues I guess. Can't say I didn't warn you. AN: This is AU I guess. Harper's cool (except in the new episodes, he's a whiney little toad now, damn the departure of Mr. Wolfe and the action- and Dylan-centered stand alone episodes the fuckers wanted.) and I wanted to do Harper some justice. Wonder if I will. This is also on Fandomination.net and my wesite, in both places it's got some coding that couldn't be preserved here (italics and stuff, I had to use single quotes to signify that. I'm fLoodLight there) but it's no big deal, check it out in either spot.  
  
  
  
Seamus Harper stood in the damaged concert cage that constituted downtown. There was a group of about ten or so gathered around the burning barrel, their only source of warmth against the Bostonian winter. They weren't friends, most didn't even know another's name, nor did they care. If it were a different circumstance, if the mood over the entire city wasn't so somber, most of the teenaged and twenty-somethings would be joking together or at least discussing something. But most of the younger residents of the ghetto were still effected when there was a slave raid, when the Ubers came and ripped away relatives, neighbors, friends, comrades. Most of those at the barrel were too busy cursing their elders for their lack of compassion to notice or care that they weren't alone.  
  
That was where Seamus was, but he wasn't like the others standing there. Of course he was effected by the raid, every raid re-opened wounds he was sure would never heal. But that wasn't what occupied his thoughts.  
  
'I gotta get outta here,' he thought, panicked, but with skill that came as second nature to most Earthers his face revealed nothing. 'I gotta protect 'em.'  
  
He didn't know how long he stood there thinking, the wind and dusting of snow assaulting his back through the tattered remains of his entire wardrobe. A hand on his shoulder made him jump, and if it weren't for the grip of that hand and it's mate on him, he would have jumped into the barrel in surprise. A few of the others looked to him but quickly went back to their precious warmth.  
  
"Relax," a familiar voice said behind him. Not that the word from the man, the spacer who called himself Marrelle, eased Seamus' nerves.  
  
He shrugged off the hold and turned to the bigger man, a sneer carefully on his face. "What?  
  
"Let's talk somewhere more.privet." The way he said 'privet' Seamus couldn't hold off the shudder but hoped the imposing man interpreted it as an effect of the weather.  
  
"What's in it for me?" the small blonde said, trying to uphold the Earther street punk attitude that seemed to serve him best.  
  
Marrelle's hand returned to Seamus' person, to trace the bruise finally fading from his delicate cheek bone. "Mudfoot like you could always use a coupla thrones, am I right?"  
  
Seamus' mouth dropped as he realized what the spacer wanted, which he quickly covered up. 'What would Brendan do?' he asked himself. After a moment he answered bitterly 'he'd wait till the guy had a blaster to his head and ordering him ta suck 'im off. Brendan sucks. Gotta play this cool.'  
  
Seamus led Marrelle to stand against the brick wall of the ally they stood in, just at the edge of the firelight. There really was no reason, no one at the barrel was paying them any attention, it was more for Seamus' own peace of mind. "How much are we talkin' about here?"  
  
"A hundred thrones and a warm bed for the night."  
  
The boy scoffed. "A hundred? Brothel whores go for at least seven hundred a night, try again."  
  
"You think you have room to bargain?" Marrelle seemed quite amused.  
  
"If you want this ass, you're gonna bargain."  
  
"How old are you?"  
  
"What do you care?"  
  
"Answer the question, mudfoot."  
  
"Fifteen," he sneered.  
  
The spacer looked pleased. "Maybe you are worth it. Three hundred thrones, a warm bed, and a meal."  
  
"Two meals."  
  
Marrelle smiled and Seamus repressed another shudder. 'Think of the thrones. The meal. The bed. It won't be bad.'  
  
Seamus Harper walked off into the night with the spacer, prostituting himself for the first time in his young life and thinking he'd gotten the better end of the deal.  
  
---*---  
  
The next day he couldn't sit down without wincing. Marrelle was none too gentle and Seamus wasn't exactly in the healthiest state to deal with that kind of punishment. Walking to the rundown building his cousin Brendan's makeshift family had adopted as their shelter was no picnic, but he had the three hundred thrones clutched under his coat to sooth away the pain.  
  
"Hey," Brendan called from behind him as he entered the building. "Where were you last night?"  
  
Seamus kept walking, ignoring the older boy.  
  
"Hey!" Brendan's footsteps quickened and he grabbed onto his younger cousin's arm, twisting the boy around to face him. "I asked you a question."  
  
"Congratulations, want a prize?" Seamus sneered sarcastically, pulling his arm from the grasp.  
  
"What the hell is wrong with you? You know how worried I was?"  
  
"I'm a big boy, Brendan, I can take care of myself."  
  
Brendan grabbed Seamus again, tighter, and growled the next words in his face. "If you want to be treated like an adult, why don't you try acting like it?"  
  
Seamus launched a wad of spit in Brendan's face, causing his cousin to loosen his grip to wipe it off. "Let's get something straight. You. Are. Not. My. Father. I didn't ask you to be, so lay off. What do you care if I get shot down in the street by some asshole Neit anyways? I'm just a burden on you."  
  
"That's not fucking true!" Brendan called after his cousin's retreating back. He sighed heavily, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes.  
  
  
  
  
  
Seamus stood at the makeshift table in a separate room, running a hand through his dirty hair. 'Makeshift table, makeshift family, makeshift life.' He was staring at the three-legged table Brendan designated for him when he first arrived. Its marred surface was littered with the electronic odds and ends he liberated from what the Uber technology laboratories threw away. Seamus tried to put together the pieces in something that might work, that someone with a few thrones might want to buy, that he saw in the books Professor left for him before the Ubers came.  
  
He wasn't hunched over the table long until there was a tug at his jacket. He looked down, slightly, and his scowl softened when he saw who it was. Claudia, an orphan much like himself only younger---eight or nine was the guess---was staring at him with a beaten book he recognized as one of his own opened.  
  
"Wazzat?" she asked, pointing to a word.  
  
"'Outside.'"  
  
"Oh." She walked out again to the adjacent room and Seamus turned back to his table.  
  
He was picking up random wires and examining them. 'I have to leave here. The Neits are gonna keep comin' if I'm here.' Another tug tore him from his musings. It was Claudia again.  
  
"Wazzat?" she asked, pointing to the word after the last one she asked for.  
  
"Do you want me to teach you how to read?"  
  
Her face lit up at that. "You would?"  
  
"Why not? There's nothin' better to do."  
  
  
  
  
  
"Shay," Brendan called from the doorway.  
  
"What?" Seamus asked, not looking up from the dirt Claudia was drawing the alphabet in.  
  
"Com'ere."  
  
"I'm a little busy." He spoke to Claudia again "how do you know so many letters already?"  
  
"Mama taught me," the child grinned.  
  
"Seamus. Come on." There was an attempt at a fatherly no nonsense tone.  
  
"I hafta help Gabe anyways," Claudia said before getting up and running to the doorway Brendan was standing in. "Thanks!" she grinned back at Seamus and he couldn't help the anger and self loathing that rose at the sight of her missing teeth, teeth knocked out by an Uber in a recent raid he blamed on himself.  
  
Brendan walked into the room. "Are you teaching her to read?"  
  
"Yeah. She already knows most a the alphabet and some a the littler words."  
  
The older boy sighed heavily.  
  
"Don' even," Seamus defended himself, shifting from foot to foot to ease some of the pain in his ass. "If she's gonna get off world someway other than in a brothel--"  
  
"Stop, Shay. She's probably never gonna get off world."  
  
"She might. Stranger things have happened. And if she does she should be prepared. She could survive out there, Bren."  
  
"Like you're some expert about life 'out there'?" The older boy's voice was bitter.  
  
"I know more than you."  
  
Brendan sighed and shook his head. His little cousin knew more about the books than anyone, maybe even Professor, no one doubted that. But when it came to surviving Brendan doubted the boy would still be alive if it weren't for himself and the others protecting him. Damned if he'd point that out though. "Let's not argue this. I wanted to talk to you, will you siddown? You're makin' me nervous?"  
  
"I'd rather stand, thank you," Seamus' nasally voice was sarcastic.  
  
"Seamus, sit. Or I won't tell you about the next raid we might need you for."  
  
Seamus' eyes widened despite himself and he obeyed his cousin, wincing and settling gingerly against a wall.  
  
Brendan raised an eyebrow at the wince. "Is that why you didn't come home?" he questioned lewdly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Who was he?"  
  
"Some spacer," he shrugged nonchalantly.  
  
"You ok?"  
  
"I will be, I guess. So did ya come in here to play twenty questions about my love life or what?"  
  
"No, just.be careful, cous."  
  
"I know, I know, ya don't need tah tell me. So what about the raid?"  
  
Brendan chuckled slightly but his voice was hushed when he moved to sit beside his cousin to speak. "Supply shipment to the fort on the hill, we're just gonna go in and steal what we can."  
  
"Alright, what's the plan?"  
  
"Some of us are gonna cause a distraction, some of us are gonna go in and get some blankets and food and whatever else we can grab. You're small enough, you'd probably get in easiest. You in?"  
  
Harper ignored what he'd usually take as an insult. "Do you really need ta ask? When is it?"  
  
"Tomorrow night. We need someone to fuck the truck's locks and move in and out quick, think you can handle it?"  
  
"What's there ta lose?"  
  
"Don't talk like that, Shay."  
  
"All right, all right, don't you hafta get ta get ta work or somethin?"  
  
"Yeah." Brendan sighed heavily before getting up. He was almost entirely out the doorway before turning around to a now standing Seamus.  
  
"Shay?"  
  
"Yeah, Bren?"  
  
"Look, I know life here isn't much, and it's defiantly not like it used ta be. But it'll get better. We'll make it better. Sooner or later those Uber bastard's'll get what's coming to 'em and all of Earth and the other slave planets'll be free. Those Dragon bastards're gonna fall."  
  
Seamus gave him a tight lipped smile before the older walked out. 'Freedom for Earth' was the mudfoot motto from birth, it was the first sentence most of them repeated as toddlers. Of those who survived, though, most lost that hope as they grew, focusing instead on survival and possible escape. But everyone in their makeshift family was still young and idealistic.  
  
  
  
  
  
Murky light filled the world, the full moon through the haze of smog constantly covering Boston and most every other city.  
  
Seamus couldn't sleep.  
  
The two dozen or so others who shared the few rundown rooms were either snoring away beside each other or fucking unabashed at the possible voyeurs. Even after last night and being so sore, Seamus would be happy for the latter, just as long as it was something to do. He sighed for the millionth time and rubbed the snot running from his nose on a sleeve. The cardboard rescued from the near by plant's dump that served as the door from the main room to the ill-equipped Uber-provided shelter fell to the ground, bringing with it the chilly wind. Through the doorway to the side room he was in, Seamus could see two figures stumble in. He burrowed further into the space between other kids he'd procured, tightening his protective grip on Claudia's tiny form. One of the gruffer voices grumbled at the newcomers to close the damned door, for the little good the thin box did. Through the dark Seamus strained his eyes to see who had come even as he considered his escape route, were they Neitzcheans.  
  
"We'ot dose fuckers goo'!" one of them said, his speech slurred. And Seamus relaxed as he recognized the voice as Matney's.  
  
"They'idn't see it comin'!" Brendan agreed jovially though more coherently.  
  
An angry woman made an attempt to silence them but it was too late, her infant was already awaken and fussing. "Damn you both!" she spat quiet enough that it wouldn't wake anyone else. It was a miracle the child and mother survived the birth. She was no more than fourteen and grossly under nourished, her milk couldn't have been more potent, if sanitary, than the water they were granted. But throughout history the human animal had survived and reproduced through worse conditions, if such a thing was imaginable to the members of the refugee camps, and the mother and child were just another example of the species' virility.  
  
"Eh, fuccoff," Brendan slurred.  
  
Seamus throttled the urge to confront his cousin: they talked like they had gone on a raid, a raid Brendan promised he would be allowed to join. He waited around all day, as his cousin asked, and hadn't seen the other boy at all.  
  
"Com'on," Matney said. "'Ese fuckers're no fun." The two walked out, leaving the cardboard down, and one of the refugees lying closest to it got up and put it back up. Beneath his grip Claudia stirred.  
  
"Wha's goin' on, Seamus?" she murmured, turning her head back to look at him.  
  
"Nothin' Claud," his whispered after they were shushed by the mother, "go back ta sleep." She rolled over to face him, to burrow her cold nose in his neck and wrap her frail arm around his before doing as he said.  
  
Seamus sighed into her greasy hair and tightened his grip around her. Wind feathered the cardboard and seeped in at the edges, pulling against the rusted, dull nails used to keep it in place. Eventually he did drift off into a deep, dreamless sleep. 


End file.
